Advertising Ideas

​#indieauthors #writerslife #amwritingromance #RomanceReaders #paranormalromance

One of the hardest things to do as an Independent Author, in my opinion, is to figure out how to advertise. To come up with the ideas that might gain the attention of an interested reader is not so easy. In other words what do you put into cyberspace to let other people who like stories know that you have written one? It is a labor of love. You do want to share it and have others read and be caught up in the tale. How? What? I have answered where often. I focus primarily on fiction and ebooks. But I can not stress the importance of a personal website, a blog, and a diverse social media platform. Once you have made all the publishing decisions and it is time to market your ebook, social media will become a seriously important part of your marketing strategy.

As an Independent Author, I must decide it all, then I must craft it all and distribute it. So Let's look at the 'what' first. One thing is easy. You had to write a good Book Blurb synopsis for your book in order to publish it. So you might want to start with that. Then you need to shrink it. That blurb needs to get boiled down into a tagline (or several different taglines) that teases at the contents of the book. It needs to be short about 150 characters or less. You need to be able to put it on Twitter and use it to advertise on Amazon. It might come in handy in emails, chat messages, or just when you are asked, "What's the book about?"  For Example:

This is a tagline I use with A Pack Forms, But I boiled it down from the following synopsis which is the official one on Amazon.
A modern day knight in shining armor is a man with a secret. He’s an immortal direwolf shifter. A man who can trace at will into a lethally dangerous canine who holds the ability to step into the stillness and achieve any goal.
When he finds himself without a career after retiring disabled from his last mission in the military, he has to rethink the direction of his life. He needs to reinvent himself before anyone realizes that he stopped aging at the age of thirty-five. He’s learned just enough to make his existence a bit dangerous. The sexy high school teacher neighbor he has been near stalking has her own secret. She feels like everything and claiming her is all he can focus on. 
He is determined to win her as his own until a shadowy evil attacks her and reveals a situation that forces him to be the man of action that he has always been. He is a leader of men, and his need has him stepping into the role of alpha in a way he had never done before. A Pack Forms!
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The Book Blurb or synopsis is far more literary, describing the main plot of the book without giving away too many details. It is designed to ensure that the reader does not feel misled by the book. The Tagline feels more like an exciting story ad or headline news title (because it is). Think of it as the difference between an infomercial and a short commercial in television programming. Don't forget the 7/11 rule here. It will get boring to the author, but the reader won't see either that often if ever. Which takes you back to building a brand, choosing a logo, etc... I have designed several different taglines just for A Pack Forms. Some are only words without the imagery just for tight spaces like Twitter, but images help catch the eye so you definitely need to invest the time to choose the images you want to associate with your work carefully. The book blurb would be associated with the cover as the text on the back of a book jacket. So you can see the correlation. Having imagery to add to the tagline is good so that you are not always just seeing the book cover even though that should also be part of your marketing and promotion. Since I craft my own book covers, I have all my files for the images. That makes it easier.  

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You have to be sure that you always link everything back to the book. Nothing is more aggravating than not being able to get to the book I want to buy without having to hunt it down first. I might lose interest due to that frustration. As a reader, I know that if I buy a book from a link I saw somewhere that I am cheating myself from looking at all of the others available from Amazon or whatever platform I am reading on, but if I have made the decision to buy or borrow from Kindle, I don't want that distraction. I want the book that caught my eye and interested me. As an author, I wish to eliminate the distracting competition by offering the reader a direct path to what they have chosen to read. ​I am no carnival barker. I have no desire to demand that people look at me. I want to share a good story. Low and no pressure sales work best for me and the reader. I never want anyone to buy things they did not really want. Money for most of is hard earned and not easily turned loose. You should be just as happy with a book purchase as you are with any other purchase.

To ensure facilitation of access, I keep a list of all my booklinks just as I keep a list of all my social media contacts. Once I have crafted my tagline ad, I post it to my social media accounts along with relevant hashtags and the link back to the book on Amazon. It is posted in groups on Facebook that I have joined, added to my Draoithe page, blogged on Tumblr, pinned on Pinterest, and shared on Twitter and Instagram. And believe it or not, there are still people who have never seen my promotional cards, never heard of Ophelia Kee, or read one of my books. Crazy, isn't it? LOL. Oh well, I shall keep at it. 

Behind the scenes of the dream and Draoithe is a bit weird and a lot of fun for me. I hope you enjoy seeing some of what it takes to make the story a reality. If you read, don't forget to leave kind reviews. 
Be Careful!
Happy Reading,
​Ophelia Kee